Women, Work and Family by Louise A. Tilly Joan W. Scott

Author:Louise A. Tilly, Joan W. Scott [Louise A. Tilly, Joan W. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Western, Social History
ISBN: 9781136742842
Google: -2PFBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-30T01:27:12+00:00

PART III

TOWARD THE FAMILY CONSUMER ECONOMY

Most women say frankly they want a higher standard of living and are prepared to work to obtain it. Examples of the aims of these women are to buy a car, to have holidays away from York, to buy a radiogram and to buy an electric washing machine for washing clothes or dishes.

B. S. Rowntree and G. R. Lavers, Poverty and the Welfare State, p. 56

7

Occupational and Demographic Change

By the early twentieth century, changes in the economies of England and France resulted in changed occupational opportunities for women. In both countries the textile industry declined in importance while other manufacturing enterprises grew. Heavy industry, which included mining, metallurgy, and engineering, became more prominent, as did the electrical and chemical industries. Larger factories, organized to produce goods for a mass market, replaced the older and smaller textile mills as the predominant form of industrial organization. The manufacture of machines to supply the new factories was an increasingly large endeavor. Entrepreneurs invested their capital less in textiles and more and more in the production of machines and machine parts, of rubber and chemicals, of bicycles and eventually automobiles. The transition from textiles to heavy industry meant fewer jobs in the manufacturing sector for women. For while textile production had recruited women and children, heavy industry offered employment at relatively high wages primarily for men. Early increases in the scale of production had drawn women into factories. Further increases in scale and the manufacture of new kinds of products pushed women out of the manufacturing sector. Of course, textile factories had not accounted in the past for the majority of female workers. They had been employed in more “traditional” forms of employment such as domestic service, garment making, and, in France, agriculture. These areas, too, declined in importance in the French and British economies.

A concomitant development, however, provided new types of jobs for women. As the scale of organization of the economy grew, bureaucratic and administrative organization expanded. Clerks, typists, and secretaries were needed in increasing numbers to staff company offices and to fill government positions. Mass production was accompanied by mass distribution. Large stores replaced small family businesses, and they employed large numbers of salesclerks. Compulsory education meant that more teachers were needed, while government involvement in health and social services demanded workers in these areas as well. These service, administrative, and professional jobs were part of what economists call the tertiary sector. They needed a cheap and plentiful labor supply. High wages in industrial employment drew male workers, as did jobs as supervisors and administrators. Confronted with a shortage of men and a large demand for white-collar workers, employers began to recruit women. As a result the twentieth century saw a “migration” of women from industrial and domestic production into “modern” white-collar employment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.